The Goddess Test Boxed Set: Goddess Interrupted\The Goddess Inheritance\The Goddess Legacy (3 page)

I gritted my teeth. “Of course, but—”

“But nothing.” She squared her shoulders, and even though she was my height, she suddenly looked much taller. “She wants you to be happy, and you can give her that much by going out tonight and making friends. I'll stay and make sure she's taken care of, and I won't take no for an answer.”

I said nothing, glaring at Sofia as my face burned with anger and frustration. She stared back, not giving an inch, and finally I had to look away. She didn't know how precious each minute was to me, and there was no way to make her understand, but she was right about my mother. If it would make her happy, I would do it.

“Fine.” I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. “But if something happens to her while I'm gone—”

“It won't,” said Sofia, the warmth back in her voice. “I promise it won't. She may not even notice you're gone, and when you get back, you'll have a story to tell, won't you?”

If Ava had her way, I was sure I would.

My last hope was Ava
forgetting to pick me up, but when I reluctantly dragged myself to the porch
five minutes after seven, I saw a massive Range Rover parked in the driveway,
making my car look like a toy in comparison. My mother had still been sleeping
when I'd gone to check on her, and instead of letting me wake her up to
say goodbye, Sofia shooed me away. By the time I left, I wasn't a happy
camper.

“Kate!” squealed Ava as I
opened the passenger door, oblivious to my bad mood. “I'm so glad
you're coming. You're not contagious, are you?”

With effort, I climbed in and fastened my
seat belt. “I'm not sick.”

“Whew,” said Ava.
“You're so lucky your mother lets you skip.”

My hands tightened into fists, and I said
nothing.
Lucky
wasn't exactly the word for
it.

“You're going to love it
tonight,” said Ava, not bothering to glance in the mirror as she backed
out of the driveway. “Everyone's coming, so you'll have a ton
of people to meet.”

“Is James coming?” I braced
myself as Ava slammed on the gas, and the Range Rover lurched forward, taking my
stomach with it.

For a split second, Ava looked so disgusted
by the thought of James showing up that I almost took my question back, but the
look was gone as soon as it'd come. “James isn't
invited.”

“Oh.” I let it drop. I
hadn't been expecting James to come anyhow—he and Ava didn't
exactly run in the same circles, after all. “Is Dylan?”

“Of course.” Her cheery voice
sounded as fake as her nails, and when I looked at her through the dim light of
the car, I saw a flash of something in her eyes. Anger, maybe, or jealousy.

“I'm not after him,” I
said, in case she hadn't gotten the message yet. “I meant it when I
said I don't date.”

“I know.” But the way she
refused to look at me spoke volumes, and I sighed. I shouldn't have cared,
but in New York I'd seen plenty of boys taking advantage of their
girlfriends while eyeing someone else in the background. It never ended well. No
matter how much Ava might've hated me, she didn't deserve that.

“Why are you with him
anyway?”

For a moment, she looked startled.
“Because he's Dylan,” she said, as if it were obvious.
“He's cute, he's smart and he's captain of the football
team. Why wouldn't I want to be with him?”

“Oh, I don't know,” I
said. “Because he's a pig who probably only dates you because
you're gorgeous and almost certainly a cheerleader?”

She sniffed. “I'm captain of
the squad
and
captain of the swim team.”

“Exactly.”

Ava spun the wheel, and the tires squealed
against the pavement as the car turned sharply. The image of a cow in the middle
of the road flashed through my mind, and I squeezed my eyes shut and silently
prayed.

“We've been together for
ages,” said Ava. “I'm not going to dump him because some girl
who thinks she's better than us comes along and tells me I'm being
stupid.”

“I don't think I'm better
than you,” I said tightly. “I just didn't move here to make
friends.”

She was silent as we drove through the
darkness. At first I thought she wasn't going to say anything, but when
she did a minute later, her voice was so small I had to strain to hear her.
“Daddy said your mom's really sick.”

“Yeah, well, Daddy's
right.”

“I'm sorry,” she said.
“I don't know what I'd do without my mom.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Me
neither.”

This time when she turned the corner, I
didn't feel as if we were suddenly flying through the air.
“Kate?”

“Mm?”

“I really love Dylan. Even if
he's only with me because I'm a cheerleader.”

“Maybe he's not,” I said,
leaning my head against the window. “Maybe he's
different.”

She sighed. “Maybe.”

 

Ava parked her gas-guzzling monster on the
side of a dark road. Trees rose above us, and the moon cast shadows on the
ground, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out where we were. There
wasn't another car or house in sight.

“Where are we?” I said as she
led me into the forest.

“The bonfire's in the
woods,” said Ava as she nimbly avoided the low-hanging branches. I
wasn't as lucky. “It's not that far.”

Muttering a string of profanities under my
breath, I followed her. This effectively destroyed my intentions of leaving
early, and I'd be stuck here until Ava left, unless I caught a ride with
one of my many suitors.

I made a face at the thought. I would have
rather walked.

“It's right on the other side
of the hedge,” said Ava, and I stopped. The hedge?

“You mean the hedge around that huge
property?”

“You know about it?” Ava turned
to look at me.

“My mom told me.”

“Oh—well, it's where we
have our parties. Daddy knows the owner, and he's totally cool with
it.”

Something about the way she said it made my
stomach twist into knots as I remembered the figure I thought I'd seen in
the rearview mirror, but there wasn't much I could do. Maybe she was
telling the truth. She had no reason to lie to me, did she? Besides, as far as I
knew, the only way past those hedges was the front gate, but we weren't
anywhere near the road anymore.

“How are we supposed to get
in?”

She continued walking, and left with no
choice, I followed. “There's a stream up ahead. There's an
opening in the hedge we can climb through, and the party's just on the
other side.”

I paled, my nightmares of drowning coming
back to me. “I don't have to swim, do I?”

“No, why?” She must've
caught something in my voice, because she stopped again to look at me.

“I can't swim. I never learned
how.” It was the truth, but I also didn't want to tell her about my
nightmares. It was bad
enough I had to relive them at night;
if I told Ava, I was sure she would only use them as ammunition against me.

She laughed lightly, and I could've
sworn her tone grew more cheerful. “Oh, don't worry, no swimming
required. There are rocks you can step on and stuff that makes it easy to get
in.”

I could see the hedge now. My hands were
sweaty and my breath was coming in short gasps, and I didn't think it had
anything to do with our brisk pace.

“It's right up there.”
Ava pointed to a spot about twenty feet ahead of us. The sound of rushing water
floated in the night air toward us, and it took every bit of willpower I had to
keep following her.

When we reached the stream, my mouth
dropped open. It wasn't a stream—it was a damn river. The current
didn't look very powerful, but it was strong enough to carry me away if I
fell. And without much light to work with, it was almost impossible to see the
stones Ava referred to. She'd been telling the truth about the opening in
the hedge though: it was small, as if the river narrowed just enough for the
hedge to form over it. We'd have to walk on rocks and duck to get
underneath, but it was doable without actually going swimming.

“Follow me,” said Ava in a
hushed voice. Holding her hands out for balance, she stepped into the river,
searching until she found a wide stone. “Path's here—are you
okay?”

“I'm fine,” I muttered
through gritted teeth. I was careful to place my feet exactly where she'd
walked and hold my arms out like she did, but every step made me feel as if I
were going to fall into the dark water below.

She ducked underneath the hedge, and I
could no longer see where she was going. My stomach tightened as panic set in,
and I placed a shaking hand against the hedge and bent
down, taking each step one at a time.

Miraculously, I arrived on the other side
dry. The stones ended immediately, and I had to jump to reach solid land, but
I'd done it—I was safe. I let out a sigh of relief. If Ava thought
she was getting me through that hole again, she was out of her mind.

Looking up, the first thing I saw was Ava
unzipping her skirt, her top already discarded. Underneath she wore a bikini,
the colors muted in the dark.

“What're you doing?”

She ignored me. Instead of pressing the
issue, I took a moment to look around. We were in a wooded area, and had I not
known any better, I'd have thought we were still on the other side of the
hedge. It looked exactly the same.

“Sorry, Kate,” said Ava. She
pulled a trash bag out of her pocket and placed her folded clothes inside.

“Sorry? Why are you sorry?”

“For leaving.” She tossed the
bag over her shoulder and flashed me a wide smile. “Don't take it
personally. If Dylan didn't like you so much, we might even be friends.
But I'm sure you can understand why this has to happen.”

“Why what has to happen?”

“This.” She stepped into the
water and shivered. Apparently it was as cold as it looked. “Consider this
a warning, Kate. Don't touch my boyfriend. Next time it'll be much,
much worse.”

And with that she dove headfirst into the
river.

Two things happened at once: first, I
realized what was going on. She was leaving me here, knowing full well I was
afraid of the water. There was no bonfire—she'd done this on
purpose.

The second thing happened when Ava hit the
river. Instead of watching her swim away, I heard a sickening crack as she hit
her head on a rock, and the next thing I knew, Ava floated limply as she was
carried away by the current.

I winced. The water carried her nearly
twenty feet as I watched, but Ava didn't move. The blow must have knocked
her senseless.

Good
.

No, not good, the moral part of my brain
insisted. Not good at all. If she was really unconscious and not just dazed,
then she would drown if the current didn't push her onto the bank of the
river.

I mentally groaned. Let her suffer—it
wasn't a very wide river. She'd come to her senses and find the edge
eventually.

But that do-gooder voice in my head pointed
out that if something happened to her, I'd be responsible. And even if she
had tried to pull a cruel prank on me, I couldn't bear the thought of
something awful happening to another person in my life. I'd had enough
tragedy for one lifetime.

My body moved before my mind was made up. I
might not have been very good at swimming, but I could run. Kicking off my
heels, I closed half the distance between us before I'd even realized what
I was doing. The current was strong, but it wasn't as fast as I'd
first thought. I caught up to Ava quickly, skidding to a stop on the muddy bank,
but then I had a whole different problem to deal with—the water.

Images from my nightmares flashed through
my mind, but I pushed them aside. Ava was in the center of the river and
facedown, which meant I didn't have time to wait for her to come closer.
There were only two options: let her drown or jump into the river after her. Not
much of a choice.

Cringing, I entered the ice-cold water and
splashed toward her, leaping sluggishly to keep up. My foot caught a rock and I
fell in, drenching myself, and before I knew it, the current had me, too.

Panic rose up inside of me as soon as my
head was submerged. But I was conscious, and even though I couldn't swim,
the water wasn't deep. Unlike my nightmare, I managed to find my footing
and push myself toward the surface. I struggled to reach Ava, and once I did, I
grabbed her arm and yanked her toward me. My heart beat painfully fast, but I
kept breathing as steadily as I could. I was going to kill Ava once she was
awake, and if there was any justice in the world, she'd need stitches and
permanently scar that pretty little face of hers.

I pulled Ava toward the shore and out of
the freezing water, relieved to be on dry land. Even though she'd only
been in for half a minute, her skin was beginning to turn blue, and I turned her
on her side, hoping that would help if she'd swallowed any water.

“Ava?” I said, kneeling down
next to her. My teeth chattered. “Ava—wake up.”

She was still. I leaned in closer, waiting
for her to take a breath, but she didn't. I swallowed the lump of dread in
my throat. CPR. I could do that.

Roll her onto her back, palms against her
diaphragm, one, two, three, four, five, six…

I looked at her and waited. Nothing.

“If this is some kind of
joke…” I tried again. I wasn't giving her mouth-to-mouth
unless I absolutely had to.

It was then that I noticed the gash on her
head. I don't know how I'd missed it before—blood stained her
hair scarlet, and I momentarily abandoned CPR to see how bad it was.

It wasn't just a cut. My stomach
twisted violently when I pulled her hair back to see the wound. Her skull
wasn't round on the top of her head—it was flat.

I shrieked and covered my mouth, seconds
away from vomiting. Even in the dark, I could tell I wasn't just looking
at hair and blood. Her scalp was exposed and part of it flapped open, revealing
a crushed skull and bits of—oh, God, I didn't even want to think
about it.

Quickly my fingers went to the side of her
neck, searching in vain for a pulse. My breath was coming in rapid gasps now,
and the world spun as I automatically resumed CPR. She couldn't be. It
wasn't possible. It was a joke, just some sick joke where I was supposed
to drag my sorry ass to the front gate and walk home. She wasn't supposed
to be—

“Help!” I yelled as loudly as I
could as hot tears streamed down my face. “Somebody
help!
”